Dan Shapiro’s Robot Turtles board game is killing it on Kickstarter, nearing $500k

With three days left in his Kickstarter campaign, Dan Shapiro has more than eclipsed his $25,000 fundraising goal for Robot Turtles, a board game that teaches the fundamentals of programming to kids ages 3 to 8 years old.

As of this afternoon, the project has raised more than $480,000 from around 11,000 backers on the popular crowdfunding site.

This week on “The Next Big Thing” I sit down with Shapiro, a serial entrepreneur — known for startups such as Ontela and Sparkbuy — who has worked at companies including Microsoft, Google and RealNetworks. One of his startups was acquired by Google, and he’s now is writing a book for O’Reilly Media.

We talk about creating a product that takes kids away from technology to teach them how to make technology. Dan, a father of twins, has taken a leave of absence from Google to become a board game inventor.

In addition to discussing the Robot Turtles project, he shares his top 3 tips for anyone looking at funding their own project through a site such as Kickstarter.

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